Sorry about the disappearing post, micke (lmao, still); if you noticed, that is. Was intended to make good on my promise to cut down on chatter (from me), send it PM instead - bad timing but it worked out okay (still had the text on the clipboard; now restored).

Below: lost my way in this one, in a couple places (feeling broadsided by clothing, which I haven't studied much at all). Will ram it through anyhow; cleanup in PSE and ink in Inkscape (which is way more responsive than PSE when drawing variable width lines)...

Glad you liked it. Actually the green psychedelic patterns in the middle is inspired from the backwards-guitar in " i'm only sleeping" I always imagined it looking like that in my mind.

I can tell you the reason why i did the stars like that.
Often when i draw i have just a pencil or a pen at hand and i'm too lazy to get something else - so i end up doing it the hard way. Also i'm fed up with having just half-done drawings since i often finish them or add effects on the computer. So i make myself sweat a little extra to get a completed piece. It might not have turned out as good as i hoped, but it's there:)

Just realized I didn't reply to this (too busy being flippant, amongst other things)...

Don't think I ever heard "I'm only sleeping" so had a listen (youtube)... Wasn't sure "psychedelic" was the right word so I said "cellular"; at least I recalled correctly (hehe). I think "psychedelic" put me off the Beatles (teenager at the time, in a *very* conservative society (move over Bill O'Reilly)). Ditto re the related graphics, though they were very appealing (actually art was forbidden so I wasn't free to choose). Now I like this quote from Lennon:

"It's like saying, 'Did Dylan Thomas write Under Milk Wood on beer?' What does that have to do with it? The beer is to prevent the rest of the world from crowding in on you. The drugs are to prevent the rest of the world from crowding in on you. They don't make you write any better. I never wrote any better stuff because I was on acid or not on acid."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolver_%28album%29

No idea about drugs (or at least the rationale) but completely agree re being crowded [sigh].

Re "half-done drawings", I prefer to complete them on paper too but doesn't look like that will happen anytime soon. Realized that even if I ink with a ballpoint (bar fetching India ink), the current setup (temperamental camera) won't give me a crisp image/linework. Short of getting the scanner fixed, here's my compromise (below); barely started replacing the uniform-width lines (obviously wip, I hope) and it looks better already!

Edit: forgot to mention, inking in Inkscape didn't work out: not enough friction/control on the tablet to draw precise/smooth curves.

When I started I *immediately* saw the meaning in your original advice: "When doing simplified drawings like this i think it is important to be aware what you want to keep and what you dont need to keep and how that effects the result."
http://forums.sijun.com/viewtopic.php?t=42874

Ditto re Alan's comment (re going too far in caricature): "It can be tricky to do those, it requires a certain touch, as they tend not to work so well if you go too far or don't go far enough."
http://forums.sijun.com/viewtopic.php?t=42878

We'll see what happens next. Thanks for the notes.

Last edited by durgldeep on Tue Oct 04, 2011 5:38 pm; edited 1 time in total

Still wip. Lots of surprises in doing it this way, starting with the radical and unintentional shift in 'character' (can't duplicate that 'frumpy dufus' look (previous post) with this method, though I know it's lack of skill...). Precision makes this a whole new ball game (example: including or omitting even the finest lines changes the 'meaning'). Will likely settle into it, eventually - we'll see!

Edit: woops, deleted this by mistake - restored

Last edited by durgldeep on Tue Sep 07, 2010 12:00 am; edited 1 time in total

Whoa, I just went throught this thread and considering how much you've posted and done with all your other storytelling projects, the amount of work you´ve done and shared is nuts!

It is really nice to see the progress and all the effort you put into this, that is pure dedication if you ask me.

Hope the creative flow keeps on going strong!

p.s. I noticed that I wrote a shoddy description on what I meant with the angle to the pool.

I was trying to say that the view might be nice from right behind the guy on the "round pedestal" above the water. So that you'd see the character there on the foreground and a little bit of the round pedestal and the rest of the view would be a big fish-eye distorted view of that pool and the horizon. Could be fun to do.

Re "finished product", that's a useful question now that I think about it;
more below. My personal goal is to finish Patel Grand (which has been
idling since the early 90s). Otherwise the general aim was to start a
collaboration project in Sijun, tho not necessarily using my own
story/ideas.

Forcing myself to stay open to other styles/methods was an added
complication. Obviously I've lost focus many times, partly for this reason
and partly because of Sijun's previous emphasis on "painting" - and partly
because digital is a candy store (so much to choose from, hehe).

But the "something more" is Patel Grand, yeah. Privately we did a lot more
work (February to June), partly in rewriting the story (tons of graphics too
tho nothing significantly better) but mainly in realizing the importance of
'workflow' (stay focused, organized, etc.): very relevant to the "nuts"
issue.

Well, didn't miss the question so much as overrode it (or overwrote it).

Nexus Inn (this thread) is a "sandbox" (anything goes). This and "Nexus Inn -
part one" are the back story/beginning of an open-ended story (for possible
collaboration) and an experiment using vector drawings to illustrate the story
(test run for Patel Grand).

Sorry for the confusion (tho not without warning, hehe).
---------------

Still another (unrelated) edit:
Just noticed Mikael Noguchi's update (yay!):

111101 - I guess "step toward something more" kinda threw me. Learning
is the point (the original aim of Sijun): me learning by doing ("exploratory
learning") and others learning too (or at least being entertained, hehe).
Also, as a kind of metaphor, I'd like people to consider the difference
between "explicit learning" (*ruler/knuckles*) and "implicit learning" (self-
directed; see "exploratory learning"):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Implicit_learning

Again, sorry for belabouring the point but it was a very useful question
(helped me sort my reasons).

Last edited by durgldeep on Mon Oct 31, 2011 9:14 pm; edited 4 times in total